Is Your Child a Budding Dancer?
Explore the Possibilities at the Fall Celtic Festival
Irish Dance and Highland Dance are two of the most captivating and widely practised Celtic dance traditions you’ll see at the Fall Celtic Festival. Today, both dance forms are performed by dancers from every ethnic background—in much the same way that St. Patrick’s Day has grown far beyond its Celtic locations and roots and is now celebrated everywhere from Argentina, Mexico, and St. Croix to Singapore and Japan. Sheryl Joyner, founder of Sheryl Joyner Highland Dancers (whose troupe is pictured above in traditional kilts made of pleated tartan cloth), told Citytv’s Breakfast Television that Ontario now has more Highland dancers than Scotland itself, the country where Highland Dance originated. It’s a remarkable testament to how deeply these art forms have taken root across the Scottish and Irish diasporas.
Did you know that by simply watching Celtic dance, children can become inspired to try it themselves? Barbara Goggin, founder and principal instructor of the Goggin-Stewart School of Irish Dance, says that—whether a child is drawn to the sumptuous costumes, the catchy music, or the intricate step patterns, and whether that child ends up dancing competitively or purely for recreation—the spark that motivates most of her students to begin Irish dancing in the first place is seeing Irish dancers perform. At the Festival, you can sometimes spot toddlers—some so tiny they’ve only just learned to walk—trying with great determination to imitate the dancers on our stage. It’s not hard to imagine these little ones joining our public dance performances in a few years’ time.
Goggin also notes that some dancers and their families are attracted to Celtic dance forms because the costumes tend to be relatively modest, especially when contrasted with the more revealing outfits associated with some other styles of dance.
Certainly, the benefits of learning to dance in any genre are numerous for children. In their 2024 book Raising Mentally Strong Kids, renowned brain expert Daniel G. Amen and youth behaviour and learning expert Charles Fay recommend that children regularly practise a variety of brain-building activities—and they identify dancing as one of four optimal ways to help children build coordination. (The other three are juggling, table tennis, and yoga.)
Other well-documented advantages of learning to dance for children include:
Physical Benefits - Improved physical and cardiovascular fitness, gross motor skills, weight control, strength, stamina, flexibility, balance, and posture
Mental Benefits - Better focus, concentration, discipline, memory, spatial awareness, and stress management
Social Benefits - Building confidence and skills in teamwork, self-expression, and forming social connections and friendships
Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Ratey, author of the definitive 2008 book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, likewise identifies coordinated movement such as dance as one of the most effective ways to strengthen children’s executive function, attention, and emotional regulation.
Three Ways to Watch Dancing at the Festival
• Performances on the Festival Stage Some of Canada’s best Irish and Highland dance troupes are included on our outdoor stage schedule for both days of the Festival.
• Two Major Irish Dance Competitions Inside the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre While the Fall Celtic Festival takes place outdoors on the grounds of the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre, two major Irish dance competitions run back‑to‑back inside the Centre: the Oakville Feis on Saturday, followed by the Crown and Rose Feis on Sunday. (Feis, pronounced fesh, is the Gaelic word for “gathering”.) The 2024 Destination Feis issue of Irish Dancing Magazine recommended: “The Fall Celtic Festival provides a lot of family fun over the weekend, making this a top destination [double] feis to attend!” Over the past few years, registrations for these two competitions adjoining our Festival have grown by hundreds of entries. They now attract roughly 400 dancers per day, mainly from all over Eastern Canada and the Eastern United States. Festival‑goers are welcome to go inside the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre to watch the competitions in progress.
• The Parade of Champions At intervals during the weekend, you can see the dance-competition winners perform in the Parade of Champions on our Festival stage.
One way or another, the many opportunities to observe Celtic dancing at the Fall Celtic Festival just might inspire one of the children in your life to start performing reels, jigs, or flings—and to enjoy the many physical, mental, and social benefits of dance.
